BOŠNJACI/MUSLIMANI I NARODNOOSLOBODILAČKI POKRET
BOSNIAKS/MUSLIMS AND THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT

Summary/Abstract: The relation of Muslims and partisan movement represents a very complex, challenging and not very well treated topic in our historiography, which in most cases, until the late eighties, dealt with the relation of the partisan movement towards Muslims. This literature includes the memoirs of prominent participants of the People’s Liberation Movement (NOP), collections of People’s Liberation War (NOR) documents, brigade monographs, memories of NOP participants and other works that dealt with that issue. It is characteristic of this literature that it did not have a critical attitude towards the NOP, the exception is Rasim Hurem's work “Kriza NOP-a u Bosni i Hercegovini krajem 1941. i početkom 1942. godine/Crisis of the NOP in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942.” Svjetlost, Sarajevo 1972. In this book, Hurem openly talks about the causes that led to the crisis and the consequences it caused on the development of the NOP in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Newer historiography, since the late 1980s, mainly deals with the activities of Muslim civil politicians during the Second World War, the genocide of Muslims during the Second World War, topics that were almost completely neglected in the literature in the period from the end of the Second World War to the 1980s. century. The relation of Muslims and their approaching to the partisan movement can be followed in two main phases: until the middle of 1943 and from the middle of 1943 until the end of the war. Both of these phases consist of several parts that we will try to adequately explain in this paper. The first phase is characterized by the fact that the insurgents were mostly made up of Serbs. Muslims joined the Uprising in far smaller numbers. Those Muslims who were members or sympathizers of the Yugoslav Komunist Party (KPJ) went to the Uprising, but they too encountered a cold reception from the insurgents and difficulties in the units they came to, despite the those difficulties, a significant number of Muslims participated in the preparation and organization of the uprising, later during the war they held relevant military and political positions in the NOP. The second phase is characterized by the complete affirmation of Muslims in the NOP. Decisions made at the meetings of The State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ZAVNOBiH) and Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) restored and confirmed the indisputable statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a federal republic of equal nations. Therefore, ZAVNOBiH and AVNOJ, as well as the military victories achieved by the NOP in 1943, the battles on Neretva and Sutjeska, and especially the liberation of Tuzla in October 1943, caused a massive joining of Muslims in the NOP. Also, the joining a large number of Muslim intellectuals to the NOP who were not members of the KPJ also contributed to the affirmation and greater joining of Muslims in NOP. Among them were Nurija Pozderac, Sulejman Filipović, Hamdija Čemerlić, Muhamed Sudžuka and others. Factors that created Muslim relation towards the Partisan movement were different: the division of the Muslim civil political scene, the creation of the so-called Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and its relation towards Muslims, the Uprising of 1941, the cooperation of the Partisan and Chetnik headquarters, until mid-November 1941 it was a agreed cooperation, and from mid-November until the beginning of 1942 and the consultations in Ivančići were tacit, the crimes of the Chetnik movement of Draža Mihailović against Muslims, the relation of Germans and Italians towards Muslims, the relation of the partisan movement towards Muslims, the participation of Muslims in the organization of the uprising, the joining of some Muslim civil politicians to the partisan movement, the formation of Muslim units within the partisan detachments, later the People’s Liberation Army (NOVJ) brigades, the constitution of AVNOJ and ZAVNOBiH -a, military and political victories of the partisan movement.

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